Driving Tips
Gary Anderson
Going Where You Want
Tips to make you a better driver
When you’re taught to drive, you’re told in great detail what to do when things start to get out of control. But if another car cuts you off, something falls off a truck ahead of you, a sudden rain shower occurs, or your car starts to skid on ice or standing water, you’re probably not going to remember whether to turn or hit your brakes or not, whether to turn away from the obstacle, or whether to steer into the skid, as all those neat diagrams in the driving manuals illustrate.
So let’s forget all the physics and car dynamics for now and just work on some basic guidelines that will help you be a better driver under all conditions – not just safer, but better.
With those guidelines in mind, when you get a chance to practice in the car – perhaps at a “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” program offered by the MBCA, another advanced driving class, or just on a quiet parking lot or back road under safe conditions – you can practice your driving while following these basic tips until they become second nature.
Steer with your eyes
We talked about the importance of your eyes and focusing on where you want to go in the last article. There is nothing more essential to great driving, or more basic, than the main concept that the car will go where you’re looking. You don’t steer the car with your hands, you steer with your eyes. If you look where you want to go, with your head and eyes, the rest will follow; you’ll automatically turn the steering wheel in the right direction and the car will travel in that direction. If you continue steering with your eyes, you’ll make the minor adjustments necessary to correct the car’s path, whether the obstacle is moving or your car starts to skid.
Most advanced driving courses include several exercises that involve turning, including the basic skid pad, the slalom course, and the autocross, a driving course with a succession of tight turns. Each of these exercises offers an opportunity to practice the skill of steering with your eyes and see how much difference it can make in your driving.
On the skid pad you can practice steering with your eyes, looking at where you want the car to go, rather than just looking ahead, and practice changing inputs during turns. Car 4 is staying online, but car 3, going too fast, tried to brake and has skidded off course.
Look ahead, way ahead
Think about these facts: When you’re traveling at 65 miles per hour, a typical speed limit – but slower than most people drive on the highway – the car is covering 95 feet, approximately the length of a basketball court, every second. Taking into account typical recognition time and the time it takes to get your foot from the accelerator to the brake, as well as the typical stopping distance from 65 mph for most modern cars, the car will travel the distance of a football field between the time your eyes see an obstacle and the time you can bring the car to a complete stop. Even driving around the neighborhood, you’ll still need more than 100 feet to bring the car to a complete stop.
The point is simple. When you’re driving, you want to keep your eyes looking as far down the road as possible. In the neighborhood, that means all the way to the next corner and beyond, if possible. On the highway, you need to look as far down the road as conditions allow. That way you’ve always got the maximum amount of time to see a problem, decide how to react, and respond appropriately. When you do that, you’ll also find that driving will be smoother, with less steering wheel adjustment, and less foot time spent moving from the gas pedal to the brake and back again.
As an added benefit, your brakes and tires will last longer, you will get better fuel economy, and you will be a lot more relaxed as you drive.
The slalom and autocross are both great exercises to practice looking as far ahead as possible, combined with eye steering. As you improve, you’ll notice an upswing in confidence and your driving will get smoother at speed.
The slalom driving exercise is designed to practice control of vehicle weight transfer on successive turns, and to learn to look as far ahead as possible while driving. Car 2 is on the correct line, but Car 1 got off line by not looking two cones ahead and suddenly discovered it wasn’t possible to turn enough to avoid hitting the next cone.
Keep your balance
In earlier articles, we talked about how the small patch where your tires are in contact with the pavement – less than the size of a sheet of paper for all four tires – is all that keeps your car moving in the direction you want, allowing you to accelerate to speed up or brake to slow down. We also talked about how your car will rock backward when accelerating and rock forward when brakes are applied and how, as you turn, the car will roll to one side or the other.
The point is that as the weight of the car shifts from front to back, side to side, or from one front wheel to the opposite rear wheel, the tires that are being pushed down will have better contact with the pavement, but tires that are unweighted will have less contact. Whether turning around a corner or trying to slow down, you may find that the that the tires you need – front wheels to turn, back wheels to stabilize the car, and all wheels to stop – won’t have enough weight on them to do what you want them to do.
What should you do? Whenever you make any changes to the car’s direction or speed, you want to keep the car as evenly balanced as possible so that all four tires can do what you want them do. To do that, you need to change your speed or your steering as necessary.
When you add more gas to speed up or push the brakes a little harder to slow down, you’ll make the car lean forward more or lean back, so then just dial back a little to get everything back into balance. In the same way, if the car is tipping too much on a corner or even starting to skid, you can fix that by turning the wheel back a little bit or by slowing down so those four wheels can do all the things you’re asking them to do.
The best way to practice these skills is by driving in a constant circle on a skid pad to see what happens when you speed up or slow down, add more gas, or press the brakes while you’re turning a corner. But you can practice whenever you drive merely by trying to keep the car as balanced as possible whenever you’re accelerating, braking, or turning corners.
Smooth is always best
How can tell when your own driving is improving? The answer is simple: How smooth is your driving? Are your hands all over the wheel and are you constantly making small adjustments to your direction? Are you always speeding up, then having to slow down, but then speeding up again? Even worse, if you have to respond to an unexpected change as a driver ahead hits the brakes, or the curve in the road is tighter than expected, do you jerk the steering wheel or do you have to slam on the brakes?
The key to being a very good driver is always to be as smooth and gradual as possible with your inputs. This technique starts with both hands on the wheel, in the proper hand position for conditions – either 3 and 9 or 4 and 8 – and with the fingers lightly gripping the wheel, so you can feel the vibrations from the pavement and the slight pull of the wheel as the car adjusts direction. That way you don’t have to move your hands when you need to change directions, and that technique of steering with your eyes will work well.
Then, it is a matter of focusing on where you want the car to go and looking ahead as far as possible, so you have as much time as possible to respond. And when you do need to make changes, whether it is simply to slow down for an intersection or turn a corner, or respond quickly to a problem ahead, you need to make the necessary corrections as smoothly as possible so that the car will stay balanced and in control.
A good mind exercise is to pretend that you’ve got a big slushy balanced on the dashboard above your speedometer. If you can accelerate gently and come to a stop smoothly, even backing off the brakes just before the car comes to a stop, then that slushy won’t wind up in your lap, or even worse, all over your face.
When in doubt, back off
When an accident does occur, the problem can almost always be attributed to one basic issue: The driver was driving too fast for the conditions so he or she either didn’t have time to react appropriately, or couldn’t get the car to respond properly to avoid the accident.
This might be the obvious problem when driving over the speed limit on a highway and losing control of the car on a turn, or on slick pavement. But it can happen just as easily at speeds under the speed limit in a comfortable neighborhood setting, when a child chases a ball out of a driveway or a cyclist doesn’t stop at the stop sign.
The simplest response is to anticipate the problem and back off a little. If you can’t see around the corner, the rain starts coming down harder, or the car starts to get squirrelly, the simple answer is to slow down just a little bit or straighten the steering wheel a bit to allow the car and the situation to get back under control.
Here are four key points to remember
• Steer with your eyes and look as far ahead as possible.
• Be aware of the car’s weight and try to keep it evenly balanced.
• Hold the steering wheel lightly, with both hands wide apart.
•
Be as smooth as possible with all of your actions.
Like any physical skill that you control with your brain – texting, throwing a baseball, or maneuvering a skateboard over a bump – driving is largely a matter of trying to do the right thing, over and over again, and then thinking about what went wrong when it doesn’t work, and fixing that. Good driving will come with practice. In a good behind-the-wheel driving course, you can practice the skills intensively, and with the help of a coach, discover what it feels like when everything works right. Only with time and practice will everything get smoother and better, but every drive – no matter how short the opportunity to practice skills – will help you become a more skillful driver. After that, safe driving is simply a matter of being smart as well as skillful.
For more information about the MBCA Educational Foundation classroom and in-car driving courses, visit mbca.org. Gary Anderson is a member of the MBCA Educational Foundation’s, “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” task force. He has been teaching high-performance driving for more than 10 years and has written a book for enthusiasts on recreational, high-performance, and competitive driving.
Gary Anderson
Going Where You Want
Tips to make you a better driver
When you’re taught to drive, you’re told in great detail what to do when things start to get out of control. But if another car cuts you off, something falls off a truck ahead of you, a sudden rain shower occurs, or your car starts to skid on ice or standing water, you’re probably not going to remember whether to turn or hit your brakes or not, whether to turn away from the obstacle, or whether to steer into the skid, as all those neat diagrams in the driving manuals illustrate.
So let’s forget all the physics and car dynamics for now and just work on some basic guidelines that will help you be a better driver under all conditions – not just safer, but better.
With those guidelines in mind, when you get a chance to practice in the car – perhaps at a “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” program offered by the MBCA, another advanced driving class, or just on a quiet parking lot or back road under safe conditions – you can practice your driving while following these basic tips until they become second nature.
Steer with your eyes
We talked about the importance of your eyes and focusing on where you want to go in the last article. There is nothing more essential to great driving, or more basic, than the main concept that the car will go where you’re looking. You don’t steer the car with your hands, you steer with your eyes. If you look where you want to go, with your head and eyes, the rest will follow; you’ll automatically turn the steering wheel in the right direction and the car will travel in that direction. If you continue steering with your eyes, you’ll make the minor adjustments necessary to correct the car’s path, whether the obstacle is moving or your car starts to skid.
Most advanced driving courses include several exercises that involve turning, including the basic skid pad, the slalom course, and the autocross, a driving course with a succession of tight turns. Each of these exercises offers an opportunity to practice the skill of steering with your eyes and see how much difference it can make in your driving.
On the skid pad you can practice steering with your eyes, looking at where you want the car to go, rather than just looking ahead, and practice changing inputs during turns. Car 4 is staying online, but car 3, going too fast, tried to brake and has skidded off course.
Look ahead, way ahead
Think about these facts: When you’re traveling at 65 miles per hour, a typical speed limit – but slower than most people drive on the highway – the car is covering 95 feet, approximately the length of a basketball court, every second. Taking into account typical recognition time and the time it takes to get your foot from the accelerator to the brake, as well as the typical stopping distance from 65 mph for most modern cars, the car will travel the distance of a football field between the time your eyes see an obstacle and the time you can bring the car to a complete stop. Even driving around the neighborhood, you’ll still need more than 100 feet to bring the car to a complete stop.
The point is simple. When you’re driving, you want to keep your eyes looking as far down the road as possible. In the neighborhood, that means all the way to the next corner and beyond, if possible. On the highway, you need to look as far down the road as conditions allow. That way you’ve always got the maximum amount of time to see a problem, decide how to react, and respond appropriately. When you do that, you’ll also find that driving will be smoother, with less steering wheel adjustment, and less foot time spent moving from the gas pedal to the brake and back again.
As an added benefit, your brakes and tires will last longer, you will get better fuel economy, and you will be a lot more relaxed as you drive.
The slalom and autocross are both great exercises to practice looking as far ahead as possible, combined with eye steering. As you improve, you’ll notice an upswing in confidence and your driving will get smoother at speed.
The slalom driving exercise is designed to practice control of vehicle weight transfer on successive turns, and to learn to look as far ahead as possible while driving. Car 2 is on the correct line, but Car 1 got off line by not looking two cones ahead and suddenly discovered it wasn’t possible to turn enough to avoid hitting the next cone.
Keep your balance
In earlier articles, we talked about how the small patch where your tires are in contact with the pavement – less than the size of a sheet of paper for all four tires – is all that keeps your car moving in the direction you want, allowing you to accelerate to speed up or brake to slow down. We also talked about how your car will rock backward when accelerating and rock forward when brakes are applied and how, as you turn, the car will roll to one side or the other.
The point is that as the weight of the car shifts from front to back, side to side, or from one front wheel to the opposite rear wheel, the tires that are being pushed down will have better contact with the pavement, but tires that are unweighted will have less contact. Whether turning around a corner or trying to slow down, you may find that the that the tires you need – front wheels to turn, back wheels to stabilize the car, and all wheels to stop – won’t have enough weight on them to do what you want them to do.
What should you do? Whenever you make any changes to the car’s direction or speed, you want to keep the car as evenly balanced as possible so that all four tires can do what you want them do. To do that, you need to change your speed or your steering as necessary.
When you add more gas to speed up or push the brakes a little harder to slow down, you’ll make the car lean forward more or lean back, so then just dial back a little to get everything back into balance. In the same way, if the car is tipping too much on a corner or even starting to skid, you can fix that by turning the wheel back a little bit or by slowing down so those four wheels can do all the things you’re asking them to do.
The best way to practice these skills is by driving in a constant circle on a skid pad to see what happens when you speed up or slow down, add more gas, or press the brakes while you’re turning a corner. But you can practice whenever you drive merely by trying to keep the car as balanced as possible whenever you’re accelerating, braking, or turning corners.
Smooth is always best
How can tell when your own driving is improving? The answer is simple: How smooth is your driving? Are your hands all over the wheel and are you constantly making small adjustments to your direction? Are you always speeding up, then having to slow down, but then speeding up again? Even worse, if you have to respond to an unexpected change as a driver ahead hits the brakes, or the curve in the road is tighter than expected, do you jerk the steering wheel or do you have to slam on the brakes?
The key to being a very good driver is always to be as smooth and gradual as possible with your inputs. This technique starts with both hands on the wheel, in the proper hand position for conditions – either 3 and 9 or 4 and 8 – and with the fingers lightly gripping the wheel, so you can feel the vibrations from the pavement and the slight pull of the wheel as the car adjusts direction. That way you don’t have to move your hands when you need to change directions, and that technique of steering with your eyes will work well.
Then, it is a matter of focusing on where you want the car to go and looking ahead as far as possible, so you have as much time as possible to respond. And when you do need to make changes, whether it is simply to slow down for an intersection or turn a corner, or respond quickly to a problem ahead, you need to make the necessary corrections as smoothly as possible so that the car will stay balanced and in control.
A good mind exercise is to pretend that you’ve got a big slushy balanced on the dashboard above your speedometer. If you can accelerate gently and come to a stop smoothly, even backing off the brakes just before the car comes to a stop, then that slushy won’t wind up in your lap, or even worse, all over your face.
When in doubt, back off
When an accident does occur, the problem can almost always be attributed to one basic issue: The driver was driving too fast for the conditions so he or she either didn’t have time to react appropriately, or couldn’t get the car to respond properly to avoid the accident.
This might be the obvious problem when driving over the speed limit on a highway and losing control of the car on a turn, or on slick pavement. But it can happen just as easily at speeds under the speed limit in a comfortable neighborhood setting, when a child chases a ball out of a driveway or a cyclist doesn’t stop at the stop sign.
The simplest response is to anticipate the problem and back off a little. If you can’t see around the corner, the rain starts coming down harder, or the car starts to get squirrelly, the simple answer is to slow down just a little bit or straighten the steering wheel a bit to allow the car and the situation to get back under control.
Here are four key points to remember
• Steer with your eyes and look as far ahead as possible.
• Be aware of the car’s weight and try to keep it evenly balanced.
• Hold the steering wheel lightly, with both hands wide apart.
•
Be as smooth as possible with all of your actions.
Like any physical skill that you control with your brain – texting, throwing a baseball, or maneuvering a skateboard over a bump – driving is largely a matter of trying to do the right thing, over and over again, and then thinking about what went wrong when it doesn’t work, and fixing that. Good driving will come with practice. In a good behind-the-wheel driving course, you can practice the skills intensively, and with the help of a coach, discover what it feels like when everything works right. Only with time and practice will everything get smoother and better, but every drive – no matter how short the opportunity to practice skills – will help you become a more skillful driver. After that, safe driving is simply a matter of being smart as well as skillful.
For more information about the MBCA Educational Foundation classroom and in-car driving courses, visit mbca.org. Gary Anderson is a member of the MBCA Educational Foundation’s, “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” task force. He has been teaching high-performance driving for more than 10 years and has written a book for enthusiasts on recreational, high-performance, and competitive driving.